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PTS Update 23 - Feedback Thread for PvP Tanking

ZOS_GinaBruno
ZOS_GinaBruno
Community Manager
This is the official feedback thread for PvP Tanking changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.
Gina Bruno
Senior Community Manager
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Staff Post
  • Thraben
    Thraben
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    This is the official feedback thread for PvP Tanking changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

    If you want to have something as PvP tanking, you need to rework the set "Vanguard´s challenge", and the Alliance War skill "guard".

    1. Vanguard`s challenge: the problem here is the lack of time to apply the debuff. You can hardly taunt more than two players before they reach you/ are out of reach. Therefore, it should create an area around the taunted player (5m?) where all players within the area do additional 30% damage to the "tank", but -30% damage to other players.

    2. Guard hasn´t seen much use because it is single target, and even needs to be on two bars in many cases. Change it in a way that it automatically targets the ally with the lowest hp in front of you, and increase the damage transfer to 50%
    Hauptmann der Dolche des Königs

    DDK ist die letzte Verteidigungslinie des Dolchsturz- Bündnisses auf der 30-Tage-No-CP- Kampagne(EU) mit dem Anspruch, in kleinen, anfängerfreundlichen Raid-Gruppen möglichst epische Schlachten auszufechten.

    DDK is the Daggerfall Covenant´s last line of defense on the 30 days no-cp campaign (EU). We intend to fight epic battles in small, casual player friendly raid groups.
  • Moonsorrow
    Moonsorrow
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    Thraben wrote: »
    This is the official feedback thread for PvP Tanking changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

    If you want to have something as PvP tanking, you need to rework the set "Vanguard´s challenge", and the Alliance War skill "guard".

    1. Vanguard`s challenge: the problem here is the lack of time to apply the debuff. You can hardly taunt more than two players before they reach you/ are out of reach. Therefore, it should create an area around the taunted player (5m?) where all players within the area do additional 30% damage to the "tank", but -30% damage to other players.

    2. Guard hasn´t seen much use because it is single target, and even needs to be on two bars in many cases. Change it in a way that it automatically targets the ally with the lowest hp in front of you, and increase the damage transfer to 50%

    My small scale guardplar would love these changes. >:)
  • Cinbri
    Cinbri
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    Here is some analysis regarding new Eclipse:
    1. Visual effects:
    A. Living Dark:
    Was unpleasantly surprised that it remained it old visual effect of black bubble on caster.
    Its radius is big that making bubble visual too overwhelmingly visible and it have problem of rendering black bubble effect in large battles, making it harder to determine if effect applied. In patchnotes description is more interesting that skill has.
    Skill effect consist of 2 effects: 1. black sphere and 2. darkness floating around:
    darkness.png

    I suggest to differentiate 2 morphs to each have more distinctive effect and make Living Dark effect is how it described in patchnotes i.e. being protected by darkness and not by lightless sphere.
    For that - remove black bubble visual and keep floating darkness effect. Floating darkness effect is not having rendering problem of bubble and always visible and in movement it look as cool as Transmutation set visual effect. Using this bubble rendering problem here is compilation of how such effect of being covered by protective darkness will look in combat:
    dark.jpg
    ^^ Still distinctive but far more esthetically and RP-wise better than giant black bubble.

    B. Unstable Core:
    It remained its magnetic bomb visual that is misleading as skill no longer deal AOE damage. It should be removed unless zos wants to make each proc to be even lower damage but AOE, and keep its ordinary thorn single target effect:
    2019-07-10-16.png

    2. Bugs:
    Not sure if it bug or not but both morphs no longer proc on first tick of DoTs making it much less reliable against lot of attacks:
    core-dot.gif

    A. Living Dark:
    1. Cant be reliably called as proactive defense because it doesn't heal you upon attack from invisibility, i.e. when ganked:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlxX3Fk4rjY
    Apparently it might be result of skill calculating heal before it receive damage but hidden attacks API is hidden for skill calculations too?
    2. Upon some weird circumstances skill can heal caster upon initial cast, wasting 0.5 cooldown of heal but not registering by game:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9cBHBbZtQ
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsEmYWwD2HM

    B. Unstable Core:
    1. Morphs damage is bound to stages of sphere activation however not to stage of sphere itself but to its effect, so if sphere unable to proc effect of stage - damage not activating too, making it in PvE even worse then before coz before magnetic bomb was working on any target, but now with this bug Core doesn't work on any mob that having either CC Immunity effect on him or being immune to any effect of sphere or being Elite monster, i.e. Bosses:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98gr6nF6P0

    2. Same goes for PvP - if enemy immune to effects applied by sphere - damage portion not proc. Snare immunity - 1st and 2nd stage wont proc; CC Immunity after CC Break - 3rd stage wont proc; All previous immunities (which will be even easier to get next update) - morph not working at all:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySegZWRahkg

    3. Skill Analyze:
    A. Living Dark:
    Currently this skill is healing for half of Honor with 0.5s cooldown, means that in 1sec gcd it can heal as much as Honor, i.e. with perfect conditions 1 cast of Living Dark is like passive 5-6 casts of Honor. Thus in 1v1 scenario it can replace Honor and serve as proactive not 100% reliable HoT (as it not proc on dot ticks). In group fight such swap will come in cost of loosing capability to either heal allies by Honor, or if previously skill used as CC - no longer to CC enemy by it and forcing to remove some other skill to slot other CC.
    Its root is also 0.5s cooldown so it can proc on 6 targets when outnumbered. This root cant bypass root immunity like Chilled effect (root end = root immunity timer and not refresh of root till skill expire and only then root timer like Chilled) and thus it wont be possible to apply root more than once one one target, i.e. in 1v1 1 cast = 1 root proc, unless target immediately countered it by purge or roll dodge, than it will be possible to get 2+ root on same target.
    With current mechanic this morph look more like templar version of Dark Cloak than Scales(or weaker but more reliable Crystal Shield). It will help to get class-based HoT in a new meta where all classes got access to even superior "magicka vigor" that lowering effectiveness of class-based burst heals and skills based on it even lower because their healing power decreased in compare to HoTs. Living Dark "HoT" will help templar with getting higher uptime of offensive window to go offensive.
    In PvE it will help to proc 0.5s cooldown in trash pools but in boss fights it wont be that effective because skill will be barely applied on cooldown.
    Overall looks OP on paper but in reality when lot of sources of healing were overbuffed and easily available - it look balanced.

    Morph is great as it is but incase zos want to address templar's main problem of being weak in a outnumbered situation where it forced to block-spam it burst heal till death because pressure from several opponents equal to it. So, suggestion to push skill into category of Scales than Dark Cloak (while duration of Living Dark is equal to those proactive defense buffs): most usefull when outnumbered and effective but not fully reliable in 1v1 scenarios: increase cooldown of healing proc from 0.5s to higher (1.0s?)but make cooldown attached per enemy nor global. Thus healing will decrease by a lot, but not too much because we have to take in mind that healing defense of Living Dark, unlike Scales or Shimmering Shield, can be shredded be Defile debuff. In 1v1 it wont be able anymore to take role of Honor but in outnumbered situations it will help to decrease pressure on caster to get offensive window and overall will work for templar as Honor+Living Dark same as dks Dragonblood+Scales.
    Root is cool but just incase of ideas: Also to make morph more defense based - how about swap it root spam on 0.5s cooldown into procing expedition buff on caster for 2sec after being hitted by direct damage attack, taking it away from medium armor skill.
    With fix of bug of animation-cancel mistform to get major expedition, such new Living Dark could serve role of escape, smth like mix of Shimmering Shield and Reflective Plate.


    B. Unstable Core:
    First of all - morph got rid of its problem of its magnetic bomb being unintentionally affected by Enduring Rays, that was killing morph capability. That's good.
    This is default template tooltip comparison of this morph:compare.png
    Taking into account passive to extend duration to 6sec:
    Old Core was able to be proced twice per 1sec cooldown - 616x8+739=5667 damage from 1 core with aoe capability in perfect conditions. New core (282+566+849)x2=3394 damage from 1 core in perfect conditions.
    So in perfect conditions new Core lost aoe damage, its total damage nerfed more than twice its base damage is 3x less than it old damage which was previously nerfed into category of old aoe standards, but it pushed into category of ordinary DoTs and can be applied on cc immune enemies and got snare and root. Thus it retained some of group utility that skill lost in Clockwork City Update after skill lost capability to save ally by applying bubble on enemy that redirect all damage back into caster and save ally HP; now it still wont be unable to save ally but in group fight will help with pressure and control as it will be able to damage enemy who is fighting your ally but it wont come at cost of applying worst CC ingame that prevent allies from applying their far more effective CCs like Fear of Fossilize and even now unblockable stun of 3rd stage of sphere will be proper hard stun that disable target, not like old one pseudo-CC that didn't disabled offensive and defensive capability of target. However new Core don't have magnetic bomb that was unblockable aoe explosion that was equal to sorcs Curse but unlike it couldn't be cleansed without procing it

    However perfect conditions never worked with this skill because old Core was able to be break free and thus we can just cut its damage to 1-2 ticks against experienced players with only apply of magnetic bomb. So, like Curse with couple aoe dot ticks and forcing to CC Break. Smth like 739+616x4=~~3203.
    New core in reality have comparable problems - its damage is attached to sphere stage, thus reapply bubble before previous expire will reset damage boost and skill will deal 3x less damage than before. Also cooldown increased to 1sec and thus against enemy without many direct attacks skill will proc not even 1sec but every 2sec, which is like double reduction to total damage.
    Also CC effects despite their usefullness also has drawback on morph:
    It stun while valuable also ensure so that sphere cant be activated 6 times and wont follow perfect period of stages: 1st-2nd-3rd(stun)-1st-2nd-3rd simply because in reality longer cooldown + breaking free will take time longer than 1sec, so sphere barely will pass three stages to recycle back to 1st stage and repeat, and thus is damage too. So total damage will be smth like 282+566+849=~~1697.
    Also its CC effects are not that effective as it look on paper - Its snare is equal to snare of Sacred Ground so in actual combat in a melee range it has no real effect beside being short debuff that can waste purge slot; while being only effect that can be applied twice upon 1 Core. Its Root equal to Living Dark and cant refresh itself so unless it purged it will proc root immunity that is longer than time for sphere to go from first 2nd stage to go full stages and go against to second 2nd stage of sphere. i.e Root will be casted only once per skill cast on target. Same goes for hard stun - even if in some perfect conditions sphere will go into 3rd stage second time - stun wont be applied coz first 3rd stage after hard stun will proc CC immunity, i.e. hard stun cant be applied more than once per 1 cast of Core.

    And its overall weakness in pvp just swaped but not removed simply coz Total Dark no longer here. Total Dark was always bis morph coz it was granting damage and survivability while Core could only grant more damage but no actually survivability in combat. Without proactive defense on templar it was mostly pointless to go Core over TD, but now there is no choice within morphs if your preference for CC but to go Core morph. If watching on skill from this point of view and think of balance as old Total Dark vs new Unstable Core as CC skill on limited skillbar, than new version of Eclipse lost lot of survivability it was granting in exchange of CCs.

    So new Core has lost twice (depending on how aggressive opponent) damage output and lot of survivability in cost of being far more reliable DoT-type skill(if this bug with damage attached to effects will be fixed) with different CC effects and restored offensive group utility. Sounds OK for me at least for now.
    @ZOS_Gilliam
    Edited by Cinbri on July 12, 2019 7:01AM
  • Thraben
    Thraben
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    When we´re at it (as this skill will only be used by support/ tank players):

    3) The Psijic guild Time Stop morph "Borrowed Time", though a PvP specific morph intended to combat overhealing groups, simply doesn´t work in PvP, because of its cast (the server often doesn´t register it, unlike Time Freeze) and the fact that the desired debuff (the healing absorbtion) won´t work on CC-immune targets.

    -> Make it work like Time Freeze, but remove the stun. This way, the heal absorbtion is applied to all those who haven´t left the dome within its 4 seconds duration.
    Edited by Thraben on July 11, 2019 11:31PM
    Hauptmann der Dolche des Königs

    DDK ist die letzte Verteidigungslinie des Dolchsturz- Bündnisses auf der 30-Tage-No-CP- Kampagne(EU) mit dem Anspruch, in kleinen, anfängerfreundlichen Raid-Gruppen möglichst epische Schlachten auszufechten.

    DDK is the Daggerfall Covenant´s last line of defense on the 30 days no-cp campaign (EU). We intend to fight epic battles in small, casual player friendly raid groups.
  • ebix_
    ebix_
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    I can't believe you are reducing penalty cost of Bolt Escape to treat it like roll dodge ..even now any brain dead player can easily spam it 2-3 times and get to other side of map ...
    you can't treat an skill that teleports you 15 meters away and stuns enemies and absorb projectiles like roll dodge .
    some skills like shadow cloak and bolt escape need to become more punishable to avoid players spamming one skill to get away from every situation . like when you are revealed from shadow cloak by taking damage make next one cost a little more for a few seconds or reduce the travel distance of bolt escape for each stack by 3-4 meters , penalties like this make players to think about other methods of survival in different situations instead of just pressing one button and hoping for the best .
    Edited by ebix_ on July 12, 2019 6:57PM
  • umagon
    umagon
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    Thraben wrote: »
    This is the official feedback thread for PvP Tanking changes. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.
    1. Vanguard`s challenge: the problem here is the lack of time to apply the debuff. You can hardly taunt more than two players before they reach you/ are out of reach. Therefore, it should create an area around the taunted player (5m?) where all players within the area do additional 30% damage to the "tank", but -30% damage to other players.

    I like the idea of changing sets to better suit the role, but I do not think pvp tanks should be punished for fulfilling a role. So, things where the tank has to take more damage than they already are taking or get some unnecessary debuff I think are prohibitive factors for players that are looking into building a pvp tank.

    This part is more towards zos, The criteria for a “pvp tank” needs to be better defined by zos if you want to have that role category and be able to create sets and mechanics that support it.

    I think pvp tanks should be given more access for detrimental status effects on hostile players. Although I think it should be gated in a manner where the fifth set bonus on these types of sets only activates when both minimum health and/or resistance requirements are met. So that “pvp tank” role is more defined and not just players with high amounts of damage mitigation.

    Taking the Vanguard's Challenge set as an example along with Thraben’s idea changing to something like:
    “While at or above 38,000 health or higher your taunt on a player places major maim on the target and 5 other targets within a 10meter range of that player for 6 seconds.”

    Or making Battalion Defender something like “While at or above 35,000 health and 33,000 spell/physical resistance; successful blocks heals 6 group members for 1500 Health and places major vulnerability on the attacker for 6 seconds. Group members can only be healed every 2 seconds. Hostile players affected by this source of major vulnerability can only be affected by it every 20 seconds.”

    Pvp Tanks need something where their presence in friendly group compositions would be desired and their presence among hostile players be more of a threat that has to be dealt with instead of mostly ignored.
    Edited by umagon on July 13, 2019 10:51PM
  • Iskiab
    Iskiab
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    Issue I see is the high cost of aoe cc abilities. A tank doesn’t have the resources to use many of these disrupting abilities because they’re too expensive.

    Silver leash is a great single target ability that’s useful as a pvp tanking ability. If the intent is to make aoe abilities more costly maybe introduce better single target cc to help pvp tanks play the disruptor role.
    Edited by Iskiab on July 13, 2019 11:13PM
    Looking for any guildies I used to play with:
    Havoc Warhammer - Alair
    LoC EQ2 - Mayi and Iskiab
    Condemned and Tabula Rasa - Rift - Iskiab
    Or anyone else I used to play games with in guilds I’ve forgotten
  • Cinbri
    Cinbri
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    So, fixed Living Dark need some improvements.
    1. Its current iteration is that it cost more than Rapid Regen, heal bit more than it and apply root in exchange of loosing group heal. So, skill is just templar version of RR. It would be huge improvement if RR/Mutagen wouldn't be buffed.
    It heal more than RR but very unreliable, is both morphs lost possibility to proc on first tick of DoTs, making it against incoming dot meta not that good. Here is short comparison how despite it should heal more - it actually will heal less:
    in a short duel against magdk:
    2019-07-17-4.png
    2019-07-17-5.png
    ^^ It very unreliable because it loosing healing ticks when enemy using dots to the point where buffed Cleansing Ritual can heal more.
    Same goes in PvE - when monsters use special abilities - skill loose all of it effectiveness because same as proc sets now it not proc on monsters special moves. And despite it currently "templar RR" - it so unreliable on proc that it uncapable to keep you alive as good as RR can. For example first monster met in Vvardenfell:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUJu0_UN6LI
    ^^So it cant even keep you alive despite it high cost and similar to RR effect.
    So, both morphs should retain capability to proc at least on first tick of DoT applied.In case of Core - it regained reliable CC and thus it validated it loss of damage but for Dark reliability didn't increased more than healing decreased, i.e. it remained as average as it was as Total Dark.

    2. Scaling - it said it suppose to be where this skill is shine, but it not. Because even in 1v1 it possible to get it maximum scaling by animation cancelling (that used by everyone), but than this skill will be just bit more heal than RR when not faced dot build. So scaling can be already bypassed in 1v1 and dot have that actual scaling that mean more enemies - higher utility. But skill cost is far higher - between Crystal Shield and Scales - both are proactive defenses, both have unique scaling mechanics - Crystal is protect only against 3 attacks but it 100% protection, while Scales is 50% but of all attacks for 6sec, i.e. scales in amount of enemies. And while Dark is also 6sec buff that should put it in line with those skills - it lack of any scaling to be actual proactive defense, while it highest effectiveness when fully scaled is just bit more than RR and can be achieved by 2 enemies already. As it stands it can no longer overshadow Honor but also cant be used as Scales.
    So, I suggest to either:
    1. decrease heal for another 25% and remove cooldown completely while keeping proc as it is so skill will actually scales depends on amount of aggression templar face.
    2. Make cooldown scales per enemy, not global - so in 1v1 it remain as it is but in open world it will have actual scaling mechanism.
    3. Buff its additional effects to repay its high cost and situativeness - in pve this skill should help with tankiness while in pvp tempalrs already have equal snare 30% from Scared Ground or stronger Sun Fire 40%. So, how bout help tempalrs in pve and evade redundancy in pvp and change Core 1st stage snare for minor maim and for Dark to add minor maim debuff proccing along with root


    3. Visual effects - and again its - visual should be changed.
    Its current black sphere is too big and not match size of other comparable visually self-buffs like Mirage, or psijic shield:
    living-dark-idea.png
    Its too visually overwhelming, unlike dk Scales.
    So, either reduce radius of sphere to match other same buffs or as I suggested - remove sphere effect from this morph with remained floating shadows visual. That how it will look in action:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy0-m7j4xcY
    ^^apart from just floating shadows eclipse apply dark coat visual effect. It most of time unnoticeable because black sphere but without it it would be visible that target is black with smth floating around it.

    Either of changes will be nice, because for huge black sphere effect right now it should have super strong effect to visually and mathematically match it power.
    Edited by Cinbri on July 18, 2019 10:33AM
  • Lord_Eomer
    Lord_Eomer
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    There is hardly any tanking in PVP if Tanks able to deliver enough damage output comparing DD
  • Cinbri
    Cinbri
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    5.1.2: "The Physical and Spell Penetration from this ability now only apply to Direct Damage or channeled attacks like Flurry."
    So it was done because those channeled attacks like Flurry or Jabs operating same as direct damage attacks.

    But why exact same wasn't done for Eclipse? It no longer proc on first ticks of dots, that already decreased a lot its reliability but also as result it no longer proc on those channel attacks, and thus it cant even operate of working against this version of spammable direct hits:
    core-dot.gif
    ^^ Living Dark can't heal against those channeled attacks
    If not return it capability to proc on 1st tick of dots - than at least update it to proc on channel's attack. Those attacks works longer than cooldown of Eclipse and thus it will proc it twice within 1gcd, same as if target would use instant cast direct spammable along with light attacks weaving.
  • No_Division
    No_Division
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    Cinbri wrote: »
    Here is some analysis regarding new Eclipse:
    1. Visual effects:
    A. Living Dark:
    Was unpleasantly surprised that it remained it old visual effect of black bubble on caster.
    Its radius is big that making bubble visual too overwhelmingly visible and it have problem of rendering black bubble effect in large battles, making it harder to determine if effect applied. In patchnotes description is more interesting that skill has.
    Skill effect consist of 2 effects: 1. black sphere and 2. darkness floating around:
    darkness.png

    I suggest to differentiate 2 morphs to each have more distinctive effect and make Living Dark effect is how it described in patchnotes i.e. being protected by darkness and not by lightless sphere.
    For that - remove black bubble visual and keep floating darkness effect. Floating darkness effect is not having rendering problem of bubble and always visible and in movement it look as cool as Transmutation set visual effect. Using this bubble rendering problem here is compilation of how such effect of being covered by protective darkness will look in combat:
    dark.jpg
    ^^ Still distinctive but far more esthetically and RP-wise better than giant black bubble.

    B. Unstable Core:
    It remained its magnetic bomb visual that is misleading as skill no longer deal AOE damage. It should be removed unless zos wants to make each proc to be even lower damage but AOE, and keep its ordinary thorn single target effect:
    2019-07-10-16.png

    2. Bugs:
    Not sure if it bug or not but both morphs no longer proc on first tick of DoTs making it much less reliable against lot of attacks:
    core-dot.gif

    A. Living Dark:
    1. Cant be reliably called as proactive defense because it doesn't heal you upon attack from invisibility, i.e. when ganked:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlxX3Fk4rjY
    Apparently it might be result of skill calculating heal before it receive damage but hidden attacks API is hidden for skill calculations too?
    2. Upon some weird circumstances skill can heal caster upon initial cast, wasting 0.5 cooldown of heal but not registering by game:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9cBHBbZtQ
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsEmYWwD2HM

    B. Unstable Core:
    1. Morphs damage is bound to stages of sphere activation however not to stage of sphere itself but to its effect, so if sphere unable to proc effect of stage - damage not activating too, making it in PvE even worse then before coz before magnetic bomb was working on any target, but now with this bug Core doesn't work on any mob that having either CC Immunity effect on him or being immune to any effect of sphere or being Elite monster, i.e. Bosses:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98gr6nF6P0

    2. Same goes for PvP - if enemy immune to effects applied by sphere - damage portion not proc. Snare immunity - 1st and 2nd stage wont proc; CC Immunity after CC Break - 3rd stage wont proc; All previous immunities (which will be even easier to get next update) - morph not working at all:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySegZWRahkg

    3. Skill Analyze:
    A. Living Dark:
    Currently this skill is healing for half of Honor with 0.5s cooldown, means that in 1sec gcd it can heal as much as Honor, i.e. with perfect conditions 1 cast of Living Dark is like passive 5-6 casts of Honor. Thus in 1v1 scenario it can replace Honor and serve as proactive not 100% reliable HoT (as it not proc on dot ticks). In group fight such swap will come in cost of loosing capability to either heal allies by Honor, or if previously skill used as CC - no longer to CC enemy by it and forcing to remove some other skill to slot other CC.
    Its root is also 0.5s cooldown so it can proc on 6 targets when outnumbered. This root cant bypass root immunity like Chilled effect (root end = root immunity timer and not refresh of root till skill expire and only then root timer like Chilled) and thus it wont be possible to apply root more than once one one target, i.e. in 1v1 1 cast = 1 root proc, unless target immediately countered it by purge or roll dodge, than it will be possible to get 2+ root on same target.
    With current mechanic this morph look more like templar version of Dark Cloak than Scales(or weaker but more reliable Crystal Shield). It will help to get class-based HoT in a new meta where all classes got access to even superior "magicka vigor" that lowering effectiveness of class-based burst heals and skills based on it even lower because their healing power decreased in compare to HoTs. Living Dark "HoT" will help templar with getting higher uptime of offensive window to go offensive.
    In PvE it will help to proc 0.5s cooldown in trash pools but in boss fights it wont be that effective because skill will be barely applied on cooldown.
    Overall looks OP on paper but in reality when lot of sources of healing were overbuffed and easily available - it look balanced.

    Morph is great as it is but incase zos want to address templar's main problem of being weak in a outnumbered situation where it forced to block-spam it burst heal till death because pressure from several opponents equal to it. So, suggestion to push skill into category of Scales than Dark Cloak (while duration of Living Dark is equal to those proactive defense buffs): most usefull when outnumbered and effective but not fully reliable in 1v1 scenarios: increase cooldown of healing proc from 0.5s to higher (1.0s?)but make cooldown attached per enemy nor global. Thus healing will decrease by a lot, but not too much because we have to take in mind that healing defense of Living Dark, unlike Scales or Shimmering Shield, can be shredded be Defile debuff. In 1v1 it wont be able anymore to take role of Honor but in outnumbered situations it will help to decrease pressure on caster to get offensive window and overall will work for templar as Honor+Living Dark same as dks Dragonblood+Scales.
    Root is cool but just incase of ideas: Also to make morph more defense based - how about swap it root spam on 0.5s cooldown into procing expedition buff on caster for 2sec after being hitted by direct damage attack, taking it away from medium armor skill.
    With fix of bug of animation-cancel mistform to get major expedition, such new Living Dark could serve role of escape, smth like mix of Shimmering Shield and Reflective Plate.


    B. Unstable Core:
    First of all - morph got rid of its problem of its magnetic bomb being unintentionally affected by Enduring Rays, that was killing morph capability. That's good.
    This is default template tooltip comparison of this morph:compare.png
    Taking into account passive to extend duration to 6sec:
    Old Core was able to be proced twice per 1sec cooldown - 616x8+739=5667 damage from 1 core with aoe capability in perfect conditions. New core (282+566+849)x2=3394 damage from 1 core in perfect conditions.
    So in perfect conditions new Core lost aoe damage, its total damage nerfed more than twice its base damage is 3x less than it old damage which was previously nerfed into category of old aoe standards, but it pushed into category of ordinary DoTs and can be applied on cc immune enemies and got snare and root. Thus it retained some of group utility that skill lost in Clockwork City Update after skill lost capability to save ally by applying bubble on enemy that redirect all damage back into caster and save ally HP; now it still wont be unable to save ally but in group fight will help with pressure and control as it will be able to damage enemy who is fighting your ally but it wont come at cost of applying worst CC ingame that prevent allies from applying their far more effective CCs like Fear of Fossilize and even now unblockable stun of 3rd stage of sphere will be proper hard stun that disable target, not like old one pseudo-CC that didn't disabled offensive and defensive capability of target. However new Core don't have magnetic bomb that was unblockable aoe explosion that was equal to sorcs Curse but unlike it couldn't be cleansed without procing it

    However perfect conditions never worked with this skill because old Core was able to be break free and thus we can just cut its damage to 1-2 ticks against experienced players with only apply of magnetic bomb. So, like Curse with couple aoe dot ticks and forcing to CC Break. Smth like 739+616x4=~~3203.
    New core in reality have comparable problems - its damage is attached to sphere stage, thus reapply bubble before previous expire will reset damage boost and skill will deal 3x less damage than before. Also cooldown increased to 1sec and thus against enemy without many direct attacks skill will proc not even 1sec but every 2sec, which is like double reduction to total damage.
    Also CC effects despite their usefullness also has drawback on morph:
    It stun while valuable also ensure so that sphere cant be activated 6 times and wont follow perfect period of stages: 1st-2nd-3rd(stun)-1st-2nd-3rd simply because in reality longer cooldown + breaking free will take time longer than 1sec, so sphere barely will pass three stages to recycle back to 1st stage and repeat, and thus is damage too. So total damage will be smth like 282+566+849=~~1697.
    Also its CC effects are not that effective as it look on paper - Its snare is equal to snare of Sacred Ground so in actual combat in a melee range it has no real effect beside being short debuff that can waste purge slot; while being only effect that can be applied twice upon 1 Core. Its Root equal to Living Dark and cant refresh itself so unless it purged it will proc root immunity that is longer than time for sphere to go from first 2nd stage to go full stages and go against to second 2nd stage of sphere. i.e Root will be casted only once per skill cast on target. Same goes for hard stun - even if in some perfect conditions sphere will go into 3rd stage second time - stun wont be applied coz first 3rd stage after hard stun will proc CC immunity, i.e. hard stun cant be applied more than once per 1 cast of Core.

    And its overall weakness in pvp just swaped but not removed simply coz Total Dark no longer here. Total Dark was always bis morph coz it was granting damage and survivability while Core could only grant more damage but no actually survivability in combat. Without proactive defense on templar it was mostly pointless to go Core over TD, but now there is no choice within morphs if your preference for CC but to go Core morph. If watching on skill from this point of view and think of balance as old Total Dark vs new Unstable Core as CC skill on limited skillbar, than new version of Eclipse lost lot of survivability it was granting in exchange of CCs.

    So new Core has lost twice (depending on how aggressive opponent) damage output and lot of survivability in cost of being far more reliable DoT-type skill(if this bug with damage attached to effects will be fixed) with different CC effects and restored offensive group utility. Sounds OK for me at least for now.
    @ZOS_Gilliam

    Agree on this. Thanks Cinbri!

    Since the heal reduction, I almost think the spell should have minor maim added so PVE tanks have a decent skill to use that can be used to stop us from going full heavy next patch.
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